Abstract
Suggestibility is a trait dimension that has been differentiated into Yield and Shift dimensions. Yield refers to the susceptibility to suggestive item content in a first question series (Yield 1) and a second question series following negative feedback (Yield 2). Shift describes the tendency to change answers over the two series of questions depending on social pressure. This study aimed at investigating the psychometric properties and the factor structure of a German online version of the Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale 1 (GSS 1) and measurement invariance of suggestibility scores for gender and research institution. A total of N=560 (n=287 female; age: M=24.20, SD=4.60years) students participated in the study. We present Stanine norms for the application of the online GSS 1. Results supported the theoretical basis of the GSS by revealing the two expected suggestibility factors: Yield and Shift. As expected, a leading factor and a non-leading factor were identified for Yield 1 and Yield 2 and a single factor for Shift. We report psychometric properties (e.g., item difficulty, part-whole corrected item-total correlations, reliability coefficients). We compare the factorial structure of the German online GSS 1 with former versions of the GSS 1. Our data suggest widely measurement invariance for gender and research institution on Yield 1 and Yield 2.
Highlights
Interrogative suggestibility is defined as “[...] the extent to which, within a closed social interaction, people come to accept messages communicated during formal questioning, as the result of which their subsequent behavioral response is affected” (Gudjonsson and Clark, 1986, p. 84)
We present norms for the subscales and a total Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scales (GSS) score of the online Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale 1 (GSS 1) which can be administered in an online single-person research or forensic setting with a selfdefined time limit that is free of social interaction with the experimenter
Very low item difficulty could be observed among Shift items, indicating that participants rarely changed their answers to any item between the question series
Summary
Interrogative suggestibility is defined as “[...] the extent to which, within a closed social interaction, people come to accept messages communicated during formal questioning, as the result of which their subsequent behavioral response is affected” (Gudjonsson and Clark, 1986, p. 84). Interrogative suggestibility is defined as “[...] the extent to which, within a closed social interaction, people come to accept messages communicated during formal questioning, as the result of which their subsequent behavioral response is affected” A widely used tool to measure interrogative suggestibility are the Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scales (GSS; Gudjonsson, 1997). Both GSS versions differ in the story that is read aloud at the beginning of a standard experimenter-to-participant examination and the questions asked. The story of the GSS 1 is of forensic relevance and tells the story of a woman who is attacked during her holiday in Spain and robbed of her handbag. The story of the GSS 2 is about a couple saving their neighbor’s boy from an accident with his bicycle
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